The best high schools in the world, Part 2

"selling" is right

The writer for today’s entry is an expert. This expert, unlike some of the others who purported to be experts, but they did not prove to be so (see other entries on China), knows whereof he speaks. As a Chinese student, he has seen what is happening there from the ground up. His insights come from experience rather than outdated opinions.

I am grateful he took such care to provide everyone with such an accurate and detailed introduction to some of the educational issues going on in China today.

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For many years in China, there used to be only one kind of senior high school. These traditional high schools teach and use domestic text books, and all the students must take a general final test upon their graduation.  The result of this final test, which is called Gaokow, has been, and for many continues to be, the only standard for Chinese universities to decide whether to admit a student or not. There are no essays, lists of activities or anything else. One score for a two day test determines where, if anywhere (and over 2 million students end up with no place to go), a student will be accepted. These two days are among the most important in China. While there is great celebration over the Chinese New Year, there are bans on load noises anywhere near the testing centers during the Gaokow tests.

This methodology of Chinese college admission lasted, virtually unchanged, for years-- until recently. Chinese parents gradually realized permitting their children to receive a college education abroad may be a better choice.  With the new openness in China and the dramatic increase in the economy, parents began to look to countries like US and Australia. Parents, and subsequently the students themselves, thought that these countries might provide a better college education in which skills are developed in a more open way---especially in liberal arts. At the same time, the perception was that there would be more job opportunities in the host countries for those students who graduated there. On the other hand, in Chin, the sheer number of college graduates made the competition for jobs fierce and dependent as much on connections as academic qualifications. The unanticipated pressure from the rapidly growing number of students made finding a job in China among the most difficult things to accomplish in one’s lifetime. The pressure is so intense that the alternative of studying outside China has exploded in recent years.

As more and more Chinese students apply to foreign universities, relevant markets and industries are silently yet quickly growing. For instance, there appeared, almost out of nowhere, countless private schools for SAT and TOEFL test training New Oriental, the largest and most successful has far better results than similar testing prep places in the US like Kaplan or Princeton Review. While testing prep was perfected in
China, the schools themselves began to look abroad for alternative educational methods., some of the public and then private high schools  started to import the  educational system of other countries into their  campuses: now each major city has schools that have  AP, or A-level or even SAT courses. These classes are usually referred to as international classes.

SCIE

 

Some other high schools are totally aborting the Chinese educational system; that is, the school only teaches foreign courses. One of the most popular schools like this is the Shenzhen College of International education (SCIE). Founded in 2003, this school applies the Cambridge A level course system as its main focus To do this it and hired many foreign professors to create an educational environment similar to that found in the UK. The school also set up an official registration with UCAS, the English college admission system, so that students can directly apply to British universities through the school. In addition, the school is also an official test center for the A-level test, which enables students to take exams right within the school.  Since the traditional Chinese education gives strong focus to subjects like math, physics, and chemistry, top students who transfer to SCIE during high school can easily earn exceptionally high exam results of both the AS and A levels exams. All
A’s are not uncommon. In fact, they are the normal for top students. These results provide a firm foundation for the excellent admission results from the famous UK universities like Oxbridge (a combined way to call Oxford and Cambridge), Imperial College, LSE, and UCL . Every year, more than 10 SCIE students can get into Oxbridge, and in total around 40 students can be admitted by the schools above all of which are known to be the most elite in the UK.

SCIE also supports applications to US colleges as well. However, the school underestimated the quality of admission packages required for acceptance into top US universities. They had not counted on the fact that virtually every top high school I China send outstanding applicants to the Ivies and other prestigious schools. The number of applicants with perfect scores and testing make it clear that is significantly more competitive for students from China to be admitted to these schools based primarily on just perfect academic preparation. Schools now give guidance on writing great essays, providing bountiful extracurricular activities or experiences, and implementing complicated strategies for choosing suitable universities. All of these needs from what are now hundreds of applicants to US schools are taken care of by only a few application professionals. In this case, SCIE is in fact short of supply,  and so are other international high schools in China. Then, where are those students going to seek help from?

Now it is time to let the great Chinese market economy shine: wherever there is demand, there is always supply. Actually, a new corresponding industry has already grown: AGENTS, which are individual companies that help applicants through the troublesome and tricky admission applications. These agents   provide comprehensive services; basically, everything required in the admission package is covered. But the way various agents ‘help’  is totally different among them: Some of them just do everything for students; they write essays for students, they make up activity records for students, they manufacture recommendations etc. The most apparent disadvantage of this kind of agent is that, as the “writer” can in no way know a student’s potential better than the student himself, the essays are often generic and follows a template. Knowing this point well, these agents usually only provide service to customers who do not wish to get in the top US  schools (out of top 50 in US ranking), as the admission standard is comparably much lower. The generic essays work. And schools, unfortunately, in the US know that much of what comes in to their offices is not genuine. However, the need for full paying students in a down economy has outweighed the need for great essays. 

New Oriental Information Session

The testing, at least is genuine, and with high scores, colleges and universities have admitted such students in an increasingly large rate. The growth of the number of Chines students to the US is unlike any other influx of international students in the history of education in the US.

For those elite applicants who do wish to study in top US universities (top 50), there is another kind of agent, and usually these agents are referred as application consulting companies. No more fake essays, no more made up school records, the applicants are required to come up with the materials themselves. Then you might wonder: what does the consulting company do? The answer is: to provide comprehensive guidance. As the difference between Chinese education system and the one in US is huge, a Chinese student can easily get lost when facing the application requirements: they just do not know what to do, or where to start. 

The working mechanism of consulting is simple yet effective: the companies hire and train students who have graduated from top US colleges to become mentors, and each of them is responsible for helping only around 15 students. That is in fact not a light work load at all --- the mentor has to spend much time and effort to understand the mentee.  There are many similar services now in the US. By carrying out frequent personal communication with the mentees, mentors can go deep into a mentee’s heart, and help him discover his potential, his advantages, and his unique characteristics. After that, mentors can then brainstorm with mentees about the topic of personal statement essays, the suitable universities, and the corresponding activities, according to these valuable yet distinctive personal elements.

Gradually, an applicant’s real identity---which has been strongly coerced for around 10 years under the stubborn Chinese educating system, finally gets revealed under guidance, and a mentee will usually acquire a much clearer understanding of himself. That, I believe is also the ultimate purpose of those application requirements from the universities’ admission office. However, the service with such quality does not come cheap; for a consulting service aiming for top 40 US universities, the fee is usually around $15,000 (Yes, it is in US dollars). Anyways, for parents who are ready to support  the huge tuition fee in college for international students, that is, shockingly,  already a rather small figure compared to tuition and costs of 250,000 for a four year education.

The trend of going abroad to receive better education is perhaps one of the biggest currently going on in colleges and universities in the US. The exponential growing number of Chinese applicants, SAT test centers in HK (the SAT is not available for Chinese applicants to take because of security issues), and even the rising consulting fee all point to this trend. What will happen in the future? Will it finally become significant enough to shake the traditional Chinese education system? We shall see.

Note: The writer of this entry has done an outstanding job. In the coming weeks I will write a response in which I will demonstrate, through statistics and economic analysis, why the gold rush on students in China is about to come to an end. Unfortunately, schools in the US live year by year, and they are unprepared what is almost certain to be a swift crash in this market. “We shall see” is just about a perfect way to end this note too. 

After the Gold Rush?